Life with the Lady Flames: Becca's Blog

Rebecca Lightfoot has given the Lady Flames a spark since returning from an ACL injury. Liberty is 6-0 when Lightfoot plays this season.

From now until the end of the season, Liberty's six seniors will provide a unique look inside the women's basketball program, by way of journal entries. The series continues with Rebecca Lightfoot.

I will go ahead and warn you that this blog entry may be slightly scattered and random. I could easily write a long letter or journal entry. However, this blog is not the place for such. At the same time, though, I feel like I need to share my heart and what God is talking to me about lately. Also, I can't help but think that the honest reason for this blog is so that you can get a door opened into the emotional facets that really make up our team. Apparently this is for you, the readers, to get to know us better. So, here goes my part in trying to make that possible.

Well, to state the obvious … since the last time I wrote a blog, I have started playing in games again. That said, I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all of the encouragement, support and prayers that have been sent my way. As an injured player on the sideline, it can be so easy to sort of become ostracized from the rest of the team. You tend to slip in the back when the team walks out from the locker room, and you sort of hesitate when fans come up to you and say, "Great win." This was certainly my tendency. However, I have to say that it is because of the people who read this blog, the people who make me cookies after games and the people who would make a point to tell me that they missed me on the court … it is because of YOU, while sidelined because of an injury, that I never once felt like I was any less of a member of the Lady Flames basketball team. There is no way that I could ever put into words what the faithfulness and love of our fans has meant to me. Just one more blessing that God has shown me through my injury is the fact that you all are more than just our cheering section at games. You are the friends who are rooting for us in our everyday lives, and for THAT, I just want to say thanks and we love you.

So, I am getting playing time again. Can I just take a moment and confess something to you? The first game that Coach Green put me in this year, I was so nervous that I made myself sick to my stomach! Since when does that happen to me in a basketball game?! I believe the last time was maybe my sophomore year in high school. At halftime, when it was just the girls in the locker room, we all had a good laugh about this. I do believe that my teammates may have been smiling even bigger than I was over the simple fact that I merely got in the game. It was at that moment that God gave me a special nugget that I will never forget. With hugs and pats on the back, all of my insecurities and fears over the rest of this season were firmly dismissed. I am struggling with finding the right words to explain myself, but I am going to try.

When you tear your ACL, one of the things you will hear most often is that you may never be as quick as you were prior to the injury. Maybe yes, maybe no. At this very moment, I know that I am not as quick as I was at this point last year. This being the case, I have mentally dealt with self-doubt as to how much I can do for this team. What kind of role can I have? How can I benefit my team? Another thing that people deal with is the unavoidable thought of "What if I tear it again?" These are two things that I know Satan can and has had a heyday with, if we allow him.

For me personally, it was at the moment that Coach Green looked me in the eye and said "Let's go," and it was at the moment I subbed in for Megan and she gave me a knowing smile and pat on the back, and it was at the moment in the locker room, surrounded by what will be my last team of my basketball career, that I knew God was grinning at me with His hand firmly and securely enveloping me.

The best thing I can say to try to make you understand where all of my blabbing is going, is that to me, it is worth it. Even if I can never cut as fast, or even if I was to go down tomorrow in practice (knock on wood, please), it is because of the people I started this journey with four years ago that I would be able to go forward without any regrets. At the end of the day, and at the end of this season, when I will look back at my time as a Liberty Flame, I am going to be able to say that I gave what I could for my teammates and my coach, and that I tried to show them that I loved them in the best ways that I could. Again, in a nut shell, for my teammates and my coaches, all of it is worth it.

In Rachel Hammond's last blog, she shared my favorite quote from C.S. Lewis, about how God is not safe, but He is good. She explained it so eloquently that I won't even attempt to expand. I will, however, share one of my all-time favorite verses. It is Micah 6:8. It states, "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." I don't know about you, but this verse makes me feel foolish for ever hesitating. He's shown me, so now I am going to continue to work on how I need to act, love and walk, because He's already convinced me that when all is said and done, it's going to be worth it.